The One Percent Solution/Transcript
Diner: Sorry. I think I have a call. Oh, wait. It's not me. Is it you? Joan Watson: Hey, I'm back. Sherlock Holmes: I was out on a small case last night. Watson: Yeah, I was just at the bodega. Ignacio said you helped him find out where his son was getting so much cash. Holmes: Cockfighting. I had to break up the ring, naturally. Barbaric practice. Watson: So you decided to bring one of the chickens home? Holmes: Well, there are two combatants in a cockfight. I could have called Animal Control. But it occurred to me, we have an opportunity. There's some debate as to whether these creatures, once perverted by their keepers, can be weaned from their aggressive tendencies. The process, as it stands now, is tedious, highly imperfect, I believe it can be improved upon. I believe that, by this time, several days hence, Romulus and Remus will be living side by side, two cocks in harmony. Watson: All right. Good luck. I'm not feeding them. Holmes: You seem upset. Do you have an aversion to cocks? Watson: Not as a species. I have an aversion to these particular...you know what? I'm not 12. I'm not calling them that. Feed your roosters. Holmes: It's Captain Gregson. Wants to meet us immediately. Captain Gregson: So, reps from the Treasury Department and the Labor Department were in town from DC. They were trying to sell the big banks on the president's latest budget, and someone detonated a bomb. Six people are dead. Watson: What kind of explosive? Gregson: Bomb squad isn't sure. It's definitely homemade, but intricate. Holmes: So, the people from the government were meeting with the bankers here? Bomb was under the table. They were targeted? Gregson: We think so, yeah. One more thing. Two of the vice presidents of the bank that were killed were from Whitbrook-Balsille. Richard Balsille, the CEO? Apparently, he's got a security czar on his payroll, someone who conducts threat assessments for the company. Watson: Security Czar? Really? Gregson: Yeah. Balsille's got pull with the mayor, so, we're supposed to give his guy access to the investigation. Holmes: Well, sorry I refuse, on principle, to work with anyone who would willingly refer to themselves as a "czar." Gregson: Actually, you already know him. The two of you worked together at Scotland Yard. Gareth Lestrade: Sherlock Holmes. As I live and breathe. Holmes: Lestrade. Well, I haven't seen you since you were publicly claiming credit for my work. Lestrade: That's one way of looking at it. Holmes: Yes, one accurate way. Lestrade: Well, who's to say what's accurate and what's not? Holmes: Me. Watson, if you like. Lestrade: I always find truth somewhere in the middle. Hello, Miss Watson. Happy to see you again. Watson: Joan. Please. Uh, but you look good. Lestrade: Yes, well, I, I am good. Gutted about all of this, of course, but other than that, I'm excellent, and delighted to see the pair of you. So how about it, Holmes? You ready to match wits? You probably thought I was on the skids. Holmes: Why would you say that? Miss Truepenny: Fresh coconut water, Mr. Lestrade. Lestrade: Ah, thanks. Lovely. Healthy stuff. Good for the rehydration. That's my assistant, you see, Miss Truepenny. Yeah, she wants to be a consulting detective, too. She wrote to me every day, begging for an interview. I cracked. Now, as I recall, you weren't too keen about me striking out on my own, were you? What, you thought I couldn't hack it without you, did you? Holmes: That's not precisely how I put it. Lestrade: Yeah, well, anyway, Fleet Street took rather a shine to me after that whole Lawrence Pendry thing. Yeah. I got awful lots of work, got chat show interviews. You know, they even asked me to do one of those DOUG Chats about the science of deduction. Holmes: DOUG Chat? Lestrade: Wait. You never heard of a DOUG chat? Holmes: No. Lestrade: Well, they're like these conferences about the spread of ideas. Anyway, Richard Balsille, uh, he of Whitbrook-Balsille, saw mine, got in contact, said he was in the business of talent acquisition, and he dragged me on board. Holmes: Must be satisfying work. Watson: That's my friend from St. Bede's. Two of the survivors have been assessed with superficial injuries. They're ready to talk. Lestrade: I'm just going to ring Mr. Balsille and get him to send a helicopter. Watson: It's eight blocks away. Lestrade: Well...uh, yes. Hello? Hello! Yes... Watson: You never heard of DOUG Chats? Holmes: Of course I've heard of them. I just refuse to shovel coal onto the bonfire of that man's ego. Watson: Ms. Forrester, you work for the Department of Labor, right? Michelle Forrester: I'm sorry. My ears are still ringing. Watson: That's all right. We appreciate you talking with us. You work with the Department of Labor? Forrester: I'm an executive undersecretary at the Office of Congressional Affairs. Watson: And you were at the end of the table when the bomb went off? Forrester: That's where executive undersecretaries go. Lestrade: Did you notice anything suspicious? Forrester: No, it was just lunch. Same as we do every quarter. Holmes: Sorry. You said, "That's where executive undersecretaries go." Was there a prearranged seating assignment? Would you mind writing that out for us? Lestrade: Seating arrangements? No offense, mate, but I think we might be able to aim a little higher than that, don't you? Right? Uh, Miss Miss Forrester now, you say didn't see anything unusual, but, in my experience, memory can prove to be a bit of a tricky mistress. Sometimes when I'm interviewing potential witnesses, I ask them to do what I like to call a deep dive. That's a way of just shaking loose stuff that might be lurking deep down there. Would you be willing to perform a dive with me? Forrester: Um, sure. Lestrade: Fabulous. Um, just give me your hand. Now, I want you to close your eyes... Holmes: Watson and I will be off interviewing the restaurant manager. Miss Forrester, if you could write out that chart for us when you emerge from the depths. Lestrade: Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Don't be... Neetzan Mehmet: I don't think anyone broke into the place to plant the bomb. If they did, we didn't notice. Watson: Everything seemed normal this morning? Mehmet: Sure. John had to go home sick, but after that, everything was business as usual. Holmes: John? Mehmet: Yeah, John Bowden. He's one of our servers. He came in for about 20 minutes, then said his stomach was upset. Holmes: Is he a contented employee? Mehmet: He's an okay worker, but he's a pain in the ass. He tried unionize the dishwashing staff a while back. He's always talking about how he can't stand the clientele. Now, I know that sounds kind of ominous, but he's annoying. He's not a terrorist. Watson (phone): Call us if he gets there, okay? Watson: Bowden never showed up to his apartment. His roommates have no idea where he is. Lestrade: Right. Now, follow me. Uh Sherlock? One seating plan, check. How do you do? Holmes: A waiter with radical leanings who showed up for work this morning, and left ten minutes later. Watson: His name's John Bowden. Holmes (phone): Oh. Captain. Gregson (phone): Every publication in the city with a circulation over 50,000 just got a statement taking credit for the bomb at the restaurant. I'm gonna test your knowledge. I'm gonna read you the first couple lines. "Soon, you'll be ashes or bones, a mere name at most, and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, trivial." Holmes (phone): It's from a book called Meditations. Gregson (phone): Yes. We know. It's not signed, but it sounds a hell of a lot like the notes that came in every time the guy the press calls Aurelius sets off a bomb. You know him, right? Three bombs in ten years, kissing cousin to the Unabomber. Holmes (phone): Yes, of course. Aurelius espouses a perversion of Stoic philosophy as justification for his crimes. Gregson (phone): I'm sending you the full text in an e-mail right now. Holmes: Someone just claimed credit for the bomb. Lestrade: Right. Aurelius. So, we're off to big game now, are we? There is a Great White loose in these waters. Holmes: Which is it? Lestrade: Beg your pardon? Holmes: Are we hunting game, or are we fishing for sharks? 'Cause you can't have it both ways, metaphorically speaking. Lestrade (video): Like any art form, the science of deduction and analysis requires years of arduous study. You see, one lifetime is not enough to master it. No, no, try several. So where does one start? Well, if you want my advice, you start straightaway... Watson: Take-out's downstairs. Lestrade (video):...with a simple problem. Watson: But you might be too, uh, busy working to eat. Holmes: It's revolting, isn't it? A room full of people so accustomed to their own flatulence, they don't notice the stench anymore. Watson: Lestrade treated you like crap, he took credit for your work. He uses your words in his interviews. If it bothers you, you should say something to him. Holmes: To what end? The man has chosen vanity and the pursuit of the spotlight. Nothing I say is going to change that. Watson: It's not about changing him. It's about putting it out there, so you can focus on finding Aurelius, instead of watching Lestrade yammer. When we first ran into him, you said that you expected him to crash and burn without you. Did you? Holmes: I didn't give it much thought. Watson: Oh. Holmes: Yes, of course I did. Watson: So, are you mad that he's still stealing your act, or annoyed that he managed to pull it off? Holmes: What I do is not an act. And I'm not pursuing Aurelius because I no longer believe that finding that man is going to help us solve this particular bombing. Watson: What, you think the note is a fake? Holmes: I can't be certain. The notes that accompanied Aurelius's original crimes were deranged, but they were consistent in their interpretation of Stoicism. This latest one reads like the author spent all of five minutes researching the philosophy. Also, the actual Aurelius never quoted directly from the Meditations. That waiter's not much of a suspect either. I read his blog. He's just dabbling in radical thought. Probably be working at Whitbrook-Balsille in ten years. No I'm fairly certain someone is trying to send us on a wild goose chase. The actual bomber lies elsewhere. Watson: Maybe he's in the audience at the DOUG Chat. Watson: I guess I should be happy they're not crowing. Holmes: Morning, Watson. Please ignore Romulus and Remus. I'm reconditioning them by punishing aggressive behavior. They shall be fed as soon as they calm down. If the Aurelius note is a fake, we can assume that the bombing was not carried out for ideological reasons. If you're moved by passion, why give credit elsewhere, hmm? I've used the seating chart that Michelle Forrester gave us to recreate the lunch. I've examined the blast radius of the device, the wounds of the victims. It would appear the bomb was not placed in the center of the table but rather towards this end. Seated there were Lawrence Iver and Christine Danoff, both executive vice presidents at Whitbrook-Balsille, and Vaughn Antonelli, another representative from the Department of Labor. Their wounds were by far the most gruesome, which stands to reason, they were seated directly in the pathway of the payload of shrapnel. Watson: So you think whoever set off the bomb was targeting one or more of those three? Holmes: Mmm. Vaughn Antonelli is a career bureaucrat. He is a representative of the federal government but wields little actual power. Christine Danoff was Lawrence Iver's underling at Whitbrook-Balsille. Mr. Iver presents a more interesting case study. He was known as a "comer" in banking circles. And it was widely considered that he would one day hold a CEO title of his own. Watson: Hey, who's Jacques St. Teton? Holmes: I don't know. The Griffin Hotel is attached to the restaurant, and they provided a list of their registered guests the night before the attack, so we could determine whether the bomber was using the hotel as part of his plan. Jacques St. Teton is the only name which really stands out. Obvious fake. There's no St. Teton, for one thing. Holmes (phone): Sherlock Holmes. Truepenny (phone): I have Gareth Lestrade for you. Holmes (phone): Yes, if you could... Lestrade (phone): Holmes. Hi. Yeah. I'm trying to get a line on that John Bowden, the waiter. I don't know. Got a hunch. But I figure in some way he's connected to Aurelius. Holmes (phone): We no longer think that Aurelius had anything to do with the attack. I'm currently focusing my efforts on the possibility that Lawrence Iver was the target. Lestrade (phone): What? Uh, Iver? Whitbrook-Balsille Iver? Holmes (phone): Yes. We're on our way over there shortly to seek an audience with the CEO. Lestrade (phone): No Holmes, you can't just march straight into Dick Balsille's office. Holmes (phone): I'm sure we'll find a way. Lestrade (phone): Holmes... Holmes (phone): Lovely seeing you again. And good luck finding your waiter. Watson: So, our first stop is Lestrade's boss? Holmes: Who better to school us on the comings and goings at Whitbrook-Balsille? Watson: Are you sure there's no part of you that's doing this to get under Lestrade's skin? Holmes: Miss Truepenny, shouldn't you be off hunting Aurelius? Truepenny: Mr. Lestrade is in with Mr. Balsille. They'll be with you when they can. Holmes: Fancy seeing you here. Lestrade: Now, you behave yourself in there, Holmes. Holmes: I assure you, I want only to catch a bomber. I have no interest in compromising your employment. Truepenny: Uh, excuse me. Assistants wait out here. Watson: Right. Richard Balsille: Consulting for the NYPD. Good for you. I admire people who can make it work in the public sector. And Gareth here says that you guys think this Aurelius thing may be just a smokescreen. Lestrade: Well, like I, I said, Dick, we're exploring the possibility. Uh, um... Holmes: We think one of your executives may have been targeted. How did Lawrence Iver fit into the hierarchy here? Balsille: Larry. He was an ace. Started out in Dallas. He made our clients a boatload trading distressed debt. Came here to the mother ship five years ago. He had been on the commodities desk ever since. Holmes: Did he have any enemies at the company? Balsille: I guess. We all do. Larry told people who came to work for him, you eat what you kill here or you starve. And some people respond to that pressure and some people simply wilt. Excuse me, what are you doing? Holmes: Is this your book? Balsille: Yes, it is. Holmes: Hmm. Balsille: I spent two summers as a fire watcher at Grand Teton National Park. Why? Holmes: Sorry. Could I speak with you outside for a moment? Why was your boss doing at the Griffin Hotel under an assumed name, the night before the bombing? Lestrade: What? Holmes: "Jacques St. Teton." Sound familiar? If it doesn't, I'll just ask him. Lestrade: Oh, you, you'll do no such thing. Truepenny, just go, just go get security. Truepenny: On it. Watson: You're kicking us out? Holmes: Lawrence Iver was a potential CEO. Your boss is a current CEO. You can see how he might feel threatened. Lestrade: I knew it, you can't stand the fact that I've built something for myself, can you? That is a great man in there, and I'm not gonna have you harass him because you've got some kind of bizarre beef with me. Lestrade: Gentlemen, please. Hotel Manager: Mr. St. Teton checked in just after 7:00. I wasn't on duty that night. Let me see if I can find the footage. Here we go. Watson: Lestrade is "Jacques St. Teton?" Holmes: Or he handled the check-in for his boss. Either way, he's more than just an annoyance now. He's involved in this somehow. Watson: Okay, just so I'm clear, you don't think your ex-partner helped plan a mass murder, do you? Holmes: Not wittingly. He may have been duped into renting the room without being privy to the larger plan. Watson: Maybe. Or it could have nothing to do with the murders. I mean, would the room have been a convenient place to assemble a bomb? Sure. But the guy is a Wall Street CEO. I mean, if he wanted to get rid of someone, there are easier ways to do it. We, we could show Balsille this tape, see what he says. Holmes: We've already given him the opportunity to be forthright. Lestrade: All right if I come in? I owe you an apology. You've got your process, and I've got mine. We've got to accommodate each other, I realize that now. I got territorial. I was wrong, and I'm, I'm sorry. Holmes: Apology accepted. Lestrade: So, did you find out anything interesting today? Holmes: No. Unfortunately, the hotel had already recorded over the footage of Jacques St. Teton checking in. Lestrade: Look, I'm gonna save us all a little bit of time here. I meant what I said earlier around about Richard Balsille being a, a great man, but unfortunately, that doesn't always mean a good one. Yeah, he has a tendency to step out on his wife. Books himself a room. And we don't know about anything till it's done. Watson: Well, thanks for clearing that up. Lestrade: Yeah, well, it's important that we're not rowing in different directions here. You know, you might be right. about Aurelius's note being a fake. But that waiter, John Bowden, I mean, he disappears ten minutes before the explosion, and then he drops off the face of the planet. I mean, he could have done it on his own. Holmes: Well, we can't rule it out until we've found the man. Lestrade: Agreed. So, to a new spirit of cooperation then, Holmes? Holmes: I'd suggest a toast, but we haven't got any coconut water. Watson: Well, I guess this is good night. Lestrade: Oh, right, yes, uh, remarkable man. You know, you're very lucky. Watson: What? Oh, yes, I know. He could say the same of you, of course. Lestrade: Oh, thank you. I mean, Miss Truepenny, she tries, but you know what they say, "Good help is hard to find." A good partner is actually hard to find, as well. Yes, I think about the money that I pay her, money in the private sector's quite obscene compared to what us foot soldiers are used to. So, anyway, if you want to discuss anything further, you need any more information, please, don't hesitate. So, give me a call. Watson: Oh. Thank you. I will keep that in mind. Watson: I think Lestrade just tried to recruit me. Holmes: "Gareth Lestrade, Consulting Detective. When you've eliminated the impossible." Hmm. Well, perhaps we can play this to our advantage. What did you tell him? Watson: I told him I'd call him, maybe. Oh, I also stole his phone. If you want to know what he's up to, it's a good place to start. Holmes: I thought you weren't convinced that the bombing was connected to the renting of the hotel room. Watson: I'm not. Lestrade knew damn well that Balsille rented that room. He checked him in. He lied to us. I want to know why. Holmes: Hmm. Watson: Mmm! Smells good. What's wrong? You only make those when you need to calm down. Holmes: I spent several minutes last night trying to to work out Lestrade's password. Watson: Birthday? Holmes: The year Tottenham last won the FA Cup. Ages ago, by the way. Anyway, the rest of the evening was spent reviewing the contents of the phone. Watson: "Operation Firewall"? Holmes: It's the ham-fisted name that Balsille gave to a project he handed off to Lestrade. Watson: These are all about Lawrence Iver. Holmes: Mmm. Apparently Balsille did view the man as a rival. He had his phones tapped, he monitored every e-mail he ever sent, and with good reason. Iver was working with members of the Board of Directors to have Balsille ousted from his post as CEO. Watson: So he was planning a coup. And Balsille knew about it. You know, I know you've worked with Lestrade for a long time, but it's getting kind of hard not to think of him as a straight-up suspect. Holmes: Thus the Yorkshires. Holmes (phone): Sherlock Holmes. Truepenny (phone): I have Gareth Lestrade calling. Holmes (phone): Yes? Lestrade (phone): Holmes. I found John Bowden. Well, his grandmother has an apartment that's still registered in her name, even though she died three years ago. So I had uh, Captain Gregson send that little fella down to have a look. John Bowden was hiding in there. They're on their way to the station now. I'll see you there. Holmes: Go to the police station. Make an excuse for me. I shall keep after Lestrade. Truepenny: Don't. Watson: I'm supposed to meet him. Truepenny: He takes quiet time before he sits with a suspect. I see what you're doing, you know. Watson: I beg your pardon? Truepenny: All this sashaying about, trying to impress him. It won't work. This is my job. Lestrade: Where's Holmes? Watson: He said to start without him. Oh, you left this at our place last night. John Bowden: I didn't set off a bomb. I left work because I really did feel like I was coming down with something. I stopped off at my gym on the way home to get a massage, and when it was over, the bombing stuff was on the news. Lestrade: Yeah, well, that's a lot of old bollocks, isn't it? I mean, if you didn't do anything, why were you hiding? Bowden: I freaked out when I saw that Aurelius took credit. Look, I go to this Web forum, okay? It's people who started with Occupy, but everyone's a little more aggressive about change. Radical. I used to talk about the government people and bankers that come into the restaurant. You know, just angry stuff. So this guy, he calls himself Cassius on the site, he was always asking me to tell him whenever those lunches got booked. Watson: Cassius was one of Marcus Aurelius's generals. Bowden: I didn't think about that at the time. I just figured he wanted to stage a protest or something. So I told him. Then the bomb goes off, Aurelius takes credit, I make the connection, and I hid, because I don't know, I told him they were coming. I don't know if that makes me an accessory or something... Lawyer: That's enough, John. Bowden: Well, who are you? Lawyer: Your father retained me. Bowden: Look, you guys can search my computers, whatever. I don't know how to make a bomb... Lawyer: Enough. No more questions. Detective Bell: This kid read "killer" to you? Holmes: Hello. Lestrade: How did you get in here? Holmes: I think you've allowed yourself to become a bit of a fool. But in spite of that I can't believe you're so far gone you'd allow yourself to be involved in a murder. Lestrade: Right, so, what? You you break in my safe, do you? Holmes: I have video of you dismantling the security camera at the Griffin Hotel. I've got e-mails which confirm you knew about Lawrence Iver's plans to stage a coup at Whitbrook-Balsille. Lestrade: Oh, so, I see. So I didn't actually leave my phone at your house, did I? No, no, you nicked it. Holmes: Watson did. I don't think she's coming to work for you, by the way. Anyway now, in your hotel suite, I find evidence of a clandestine surveillance program on Iver. Detailed notes about his comings and goings. Now, if I presented all this to the police, I rather think they'd be inclined to view you as a potential conspiracist in a murder. Are you? Lestrade: No. Oh, come on, Sherlock, for God's sakes, I mean, come on, you know me. Holmes: The Lestrade I know would not summon a helicopter to travel eight blocks. Lestrade: Well, you know, I, I might have been showing off a bit. Doesn't mean I go round blowing up lunches, does it? Now, Balsille he's paranoid. I mean, all CEO's are. But he was right to be worried about Iver, though. And he asked me to find out a little something about Iver that might help get him fired. And that's it. Holmes: So why did you rent a hotel room at the Griffin the night before the explosion? Lestrade: Well, I suppose you get rich enough your appetites grow right alongside the size of your portfolio. Well, the way I heard it it started the same way for Balsille. Wives of colleagues... Holmes: No, we've been over this. If he was having affairs, you wouldn't have bothered to lie. Lestrade: I haven't even started yet. Well, anyway, it went from there to call girls. Eventually, and this is way before I actually started working with him, he got bored of them, too. Yeah, he felt that he deserved something that nobody else could get. Now, the thing is, about my boss, you see he's constantly on the lookout for someone to sleep with him. Doesn't matter who they are. You know, married women even the odd bloke. But when he spots one, he does a little bit of analysis. You know what do they want, what do they need? And then he puts together an offer. Money. Access. Favors. Proper life-changing stuff, actually. Holmes: So he views everyone he meets as a potential prostitute. Lestrade: Oh well, the bizarre thing is actually that he's right more often than one would care to think about. You see, nobody's doing anything that they don't actually agree to, so technically, nothing's illegal. But can you imagine the scandal if it got out? I mean, whew! Pfft! He'd be done. Holmes: Well, it's mildly distasteful, I suppose. But why all the secrecy? I'm hardly the type to go running to the press with a man's secrets. Lestrade: I wasn't protecting him. I was protecting myself. You see, he doesn't handle the approach himself. No, that'd be way too compromising, no, you see, you see, I do. I make the offer. I check in to the hotel so no one sees Dick's face. No, I wasn't planning a murder. I was acting as a rich man's pimp. Holmes: And why not tell me? Lestrade: Right, so you'd do this kind of work, would you? Holmes: No, of course not. But isn't it better I know about it than I think you're part of some conspiracy? Lestrade: Look, I was embarrassed, Sherlock. Is that so difficult to get your brain around? No, I wanted you to think that I was getting by on talent alone. I wasn't trying to cover up a bombing. I mean, you thought that I was a fool before. What do you think now? Watson: So Lestrade's boss isn't a bomber? Holmes: It would appear not. Watson: So what is he, a serial indecent proposer? Holmes: Look on the bright side. At least Lestrade recruited you for detective work. It could have been a very different offer. Watson: Hmm. Thanks for putting that in my head. So how is he? It couldn't have been easy for him to admit that. Holmes: If he hasn't passed out already, he's probably sulking. Lestrade's deceptions were a time-consuming dead end. We have a murderer to catch. I watched the video of your interview with John Bowden. I found his claims to have inadvertently passed the information on to Aurelius quite interesting. Watson: I thought Aurelius's letter was a fake. Holmes: It doesn't read like the man, but it's quite possible he wasn't doing his best work that day. In any case, I thought I would ask him myself. So I had the department send over their files on Aurelius. Watson: The FBI has had a task force searching for Aurelius for years. You think you're just going to look through a bunch of NYPD files and find him, just like that? Hmm. Of course you do. Watson: Why is Romulus outside my door? Holmes: That's Remus. Watson: I don't care which cock I'm holding, I just want to know how it got there. Okay, congratulations. You got me to say it. Holmes: I don't know if you've settled on an epitaph yet, but it does occur to me that would look fantastic on a tombstone. Watson: Why is the chicken outside my door? Holmes: To wake you, of course. I ran an experiment last night. I reached out to a contact at NASA. She gained a bit of notoriety a few years back when I pointed out to her the reasons that Pluto is, in fact, a trans-Neptunian object rather than a planet. She was more than happy to provide me with thermal maps of New York. They're heat scans of the city, performed by satellite, one week before attacks by Aurelius. In 2006, a bomb exploded at the offices of a hedge fund. Four years ago, an explosion at an economic think tank claimed two lives. This one is from one week before the bombing of the restaurant. In every case, there is a minute but perceptible heat spike in Queens one week before a bomb goes off. Each one represents something burning at several thousand degrees. Now, when we look closer at the heat spikes, we see that they originate in Woodside, Queens, just behind this house. Watson: Well, Aurelius uses magnesium tape to detonate his bombs. That burns at 5,000 degrees. Holmes: Mmm. Watson: You think he was testing his fuses. Holmes: A man named Mason Caldwell lives in this house. He's filed for unemployment benefits twice, each time after being fired from his job at an engineering firm. Watson: You found Aurelius. Lestrade: You forgot to call me. Holmes: Just... Lestrade: Must've been an oversight. Holmes: Mmm. Lestrade: Gregson, he gave me the heads up. Morning, Miss Watson. Watson: Mmm. Morning. Lestrade: So, you decided to find Aurelius. And here we are. Holmes: May I remind you this is a good thing. I pursued a theory, developed by you, I might add, and now we might be on the verge of a breakthrough. You might even call it a collaboration of sorts. Lestrade: Yeah, nice try, Sherlock. I'm not that gullible. Holmes: When I told Watson about this, she was happy. Watson: Please don't bring me into this. Holmes: That's the difference between you and her. You spend your time resenting my abilities, and she spends her time developing her own. If you'd had done the same, you might've built a practice you were proud of. Gregson: No answer. But he had a few packages from a chemical supply at the door. We texted pictures of the packages and the heat signature over to a judge. He's issuing a warrant. We're going in. CSU Leader: Mason Caldwell! It's NYPD! Back! Clear! Gregson: As far as we can tell, the bomb he was making was supposed to release a cloud of chlorine gas after it went off, something went wrong while he was experimenting with the mix, he inhaled some gas, and collapsed on the magnesium tape while it was still burning. Watson: It doesn't make any sense. The bomb at the restaurant had shrapnel in it, not gas. Holmes: That's because Mason Caldwell wasn't planning an attack on a restaurant. He was gonna dispatch this bomb to a biotech company. Watson: Well, he's been dead at least a week. Which means that Aurelius did not set that bomb off at the restaurant. Watson: Uh, are you? Are you gonna answer that or? Oh. Holmes: I swear, working with the man has thrown something out of calibration. How else to explain such a persistent lack of results? Watson: We did find Aurelius. Holmes: A by-product of the investigation. Watson: Did you change Lestrade's ringtone on my phone? Holmes: I decided to revisit the notion that the three people who sat in the pathway of the payload of shrapnel were potential targets. The Department of Labor bureaucrat was happily married, by all accounts mild and pleasant. The Whitbrook-Balsille executive...the Whitbrook-Balsille executives were beef-witted sociopaths who had sold the world on the idea that playing Three-card Monte was somehow a respectable profession. But they're hardly alone in that, are they? Holmes: We're not picking up the phone because we're working. Lestrade: Who'd you tell, Holmes? Holmes: Who did I tell what? Lestrade: About Balsille, what he gets up to in his spare time. Holmes: Apart from Watson, nobody. Lestrade: Well, who'd you tell? Watson: No one. Lestrade: I only told you. I mean, somebody must've told. Now, I've got to find them or I'm gonna get fired. Holmes: Wh-what are you talking about?! Lestrade: This! Someone, a couple of hours ago, sent Balsille a blackmail threat. Claiming they know all about his conquests, dates, names, times. Everything! Whoever's doing this, they don't want money. Well, not exactly. No, they want Balsille to arrange for hundreds of stock trades to be made by a week this Friday. Some stocks, some bonds, some U.S. currency. And to disguise it, they want to spread the trades across all divisions. Watson: Why? Lestrade: I don't know. Holmes: Well, there's money in there somewhere. The threat says a week from Friday specifically. Lestrade: Yeah, Balsille's gonna blame me for the leak. I'm sorry. I've just told you I'm gonna lose my job. And you find that funny, do you? Holmes: No, not at all. It's just I've learned that the government's monthly jobs report is due out next Friday. Lestrade: Wait so? Holmes: I'm fairly certain that this threat is connected to the bombing at the restaurant. I can also say with near certainty who is responsible for both crimes. Lestrade: We know who's blackmailing you. In fact, it's the same person who blew up that restaurant. Balsille: What? What are they doing here? Lestrade: Well, I'll let him tell you. It's his solve. He's quite a remarkable detective, actually. Balsille: Maybe I should hire him. Holmes: Vaughn Antonelli was one of the victims of the bombing. He was also the chairman of the benefits review board at the Department of Labor. It's not a particularly exalted post. But it does come with one interesting perk, the chairman, he's one of a handful of people who has early access to the department's monthly jobs report. As I'm sure you're aware. The markets can be relied upon to move upwards and downwards depending on the report's findings. Balsille: Yes. So? Watson: So the next one comes out a week from Friday. Whoever's bribing you is looking to make a bunch of trades based on whatever's in that report. Balsille: You'd have to see it before everybody else to do that. So, it's someone from Labor. Holmes: Do you know who stands to succeed Vaughn Antonelli? A woman named "Michelle Forrester." Watson: Her current job didn't give her access to the jobs report. But now she has it. Balsille: She's blackmailing me? She was at the table when the bomb went off. Holmes: Seated rather conveniently out of the path of the blast. If you know the seating arrangement, and you're the one building the explosive, you can, and she did, arrange things so that her wounds were relatively minor. Watson: Once Antonelli was gone, Forrester had his title and access to the jobs report. All the pieces were in place. She could make the blackmail threat. Balsille: To do that, she would have to know about me. Watson: Amazing. So, the name, the photograph, nothing rings a bell? Lestrade: When Miss Forrester left college, she came here. She won an internship with Whitbrook-Balsille. Holmes: After completing it, she moved into a brand-new and fully-paid-for apartment in Georgetown, and took a plum appointment at the Department of Labor. It was rather a rapid ascent, wouldn't you say? Balsille: You found her price. Didn't you? Holmes: She'd have had to find some of your recent conquests and pay them off to come forward, of course, but I assume she offered a generous package. Balsille: So, why are you here? You want me to tell the cops that I paid her to go to bed with me? Holmes: It would help us prove our case. We also want a comprehensive list of your companions both before and during Lestrade's tenure. It will help us identify the people that Michelle is paying to come forward. Balsille: But when the arrest is made, then everything I did goes public. Holmes: Mmm. Balsille: Let me ask you something, suppose there is no arrest. Can't we just give her what she wants? Lestrade: No, you see now, now you're barking up the wrong tree with these two, you see, they don't take payoffs. No, your little hobby is gonna come out now. You can either help by putting a murderer away and you can walk away with your millions or I'll go to press. Balsille: What about your job, Gareth? You'll be ruined, too. Lestrade: I don't let murderers go free, you see? It's probably the only non-negotiable thing about me. Besides, you know, I've been ruined before. Not so bad the second time around. Orderly: Sorry about the chair. Regulations for a discharge. Your car's downstairs. We'll have you at the airport in plenty of time. Forrester: Thanks for everything, Guillermo. Gregson: Michelle Forrester you're not leaving New York. Just yet. Watson: Are you sure they're ready for this? Holmes: It's not the sort of thing you can ease into. Well in a moment, the world will either have an efficient means of curing fighting cocks, or we will have the raw ingredients for chicken dinner. Watson: Oh, I'm not sure I want to see this. Holmes: Would you kindly tell him not to make such a racket? This is a delicate moment. Lestrade: Uh, sorry, yeah. I'm just in a bit of a pinch. You know, the company's not paying for my hotel anymore. They've canceled my ticket home, as well, so I'm just waiting for a check to clear so I can buy a new one. Holmes: You can stay here, just be quiet. Watson: My God. It worked. So, now what? We own chickens, don't we? I, I'm not feeding them. Category:Transcripts